The need for more practice-based evidence

Recommended reading from Anne Taylor-Vaisey: Here is a new commentary by Lawrence W. Green, one of the originators of the PRECEDE/PROCEED model, a framework for the process of systematic development and evaluation of health education programs.

Public health asks of systems science, as it did of sociology 40 years ago, that it help us unravel the complexity of causal forces in our varied populations and the ecologica! lly layered community and societal circumstances of public health practice. We seek a more evidence-based public health practice, but too much of our evidence comes from artificially controlled research that does not fit the realities of practice. What can we learn from our experience with sociology in the past that might guide us in drawing effectively on systems science?